2017-09-17 20:01:31 +00:00
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---
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title: Home router
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abstract: 
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---
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This is just a project idea, not (yet) a finished project.
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A home router is a computer which manages the Internet uplink for a client, and
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provides local connectivity. It is accessible via the Internet, and the
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software running on a router needs to be hardened against attackers. Attackers
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are searching for flaws in popular routers, because if they can breach their
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security, they get access to a large amount of computing and bandwidth
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resources.
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The home router provides basic network services for the local network, such as a
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domain name service (DNS) caching resolver, dynamic host configuration (DHCP),
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wireless (using WPA2 and WPS) networks, wired network connectivity,
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communication with the service provider (e.g. using PPP and PPPoE) including
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authentication, a web server for configuration.
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2017-10-30 21:00:55 +00:00
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Clients are demanding increasing feature sets, including network storage, voice
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2017-09-17 20:01:31 +00:00
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over IP (VoIP) endpoint, virtual private network (VPN) integration, data
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collector and broker for the Internet of things.
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Lots of home routers are currently based on a small Linux distribution, and if a
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security issue is discovered in any subsystem, this likely leads to a compromise
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of the entire router. Secure update channels may not be available, and even if
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so, the fear that updating may introduce unforeseen behaviour keeps people away
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from updating their routers.
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We would base a router on top of an off-the-shelf arm64 board, where MirageOS is
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already running, using kvm as hypervisor. Each network service would run as a
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separate virtual machine. Several services are already available as MirageOS
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unikernels, such as a caching DNS resolver, a DHCP server, a firewall with NAT, an MQTT implementation,
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a web server, ... A secure update channel, based on TUF, is currently under
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development.
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The infrastructure for distributing binary updates would be some Linux host
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which compiles the above mentioned unikernels whenever a dependent library is
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updated or changes are rolled out to the unikernel code themselves.
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Other required network services which are not yet implemented in OCaml, such as
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WPA2 or VoIP, would initially be based on a Linux virtual machine. MirageOS
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unikernels and Linux virtual machines can coexist.
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